Special Educational Needs Strategy undergoes fourth re-write

At last some light can be shed on one of the great mysteries of Sir Albert Bore’s new administration: whatever happened to Birmingham’s Special Educational Needs and Disability Strategy?

This important document setting out Labour’s approach to SEND and the growing demand by parents for children to have their needs assessed and addressed was supposed to have been approved by the cabinet months ago.

The first three drafts were rejected, it is said by Sir Albert himself, because they contained pages of meaningless psycho-twaddle and did not propose how the city council could provide for the 42,000 youngsters already assessed with varying forms of special needs within a £100 million budget.

A copy of the fourth draft, complete with the usual spelling and grammatical horrors, has made its way to me, and I imagine that Sir Albert will already be reaching angrily for his waste paper bin.

The document is not short on grand statements and pledges, beginning with: “We aim for an educational journey where every child will learn to think for themselves and act for others.”

Well, don’t we all? But how is this to be achieved?

The vision-thing continues with some quite torturous sentences.

We learn that a priority is “ensuring dignity and safety through the adoption of dignified and safe processes”. Social cohesion is to be promoted “through the active inclusion of young people with special educational needs and disabilities through the whole population” and an “inclusive economy” is to be supported by “preparing young people with special needs to play a full part in developing Birmingham into a prosperous city”.